As for the second, you need to start creating newsletter exclusive content just for subscribers, in the form of free guides hosted on your site or elsewhere (such as Scribd) or just with plain text emails that provide a lot of value.

Your email list is everything, time to make it count.

2.) Branch Out to New Content Mediums

Time to stop with the boring text posts all the time.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the classic blog article (you’re reading one now!), but in 2012 you need to embrace the change in how people interact with content, and that means getting involved with audio and video.

I wrote a post hear on DBT specifically about how to increase your blog traffic with SlideShare, and I have a quick update: I was able to make the SlideShare homepage, get over 18,000+ views on my presentation, and attract over 2000 unique visitors to my blog!

But I’m not hear to talk about my successes, I’m here to prove a point: new content mediums work, and you are missing out on tons of traffic if you stick to your regular old text posts.

It’s time to start engaging in:

Video

Podcasts

Slideshows

Infographics

Unique images

PDF & documents (guides)

Webinars

All of these forms of content not only help you stand out, they will also help you attract more visitors and become known as the blogger who dominants all content forms in your niche.

So get on it :).

3.) Start Guest Blogging With Purpose

No more of the “spray and pray” strategy of guest blogging.

In my post on creating a funnel with your guest posts, I talk about how a blind guest post (with no real purpose), while it might bring over some traffic/subscribers, is far from being as effective as a guest post that relies on “priming” readers for something on your blog.

Your goal as a guest blogger should be as follows:

Create amazing content (that’s a given, “price of admission” as it were)

Prime readers for something on your site (we’ll get into that in a minute)

Stand out from other guest bloggers

We’re not going to go over how to create awesome content, there’s plenty of info on that.

As for priming readers, as I stated in my post above, you need to write a guest post that does one of the following things:

The reason you need to do this is because people who have read your post all the way through will be interested in learning more (since they obviously enjoyed the topic of your post).

This is why ‘priming’ work so well, after reading an article of yours about “taxes” on a personal development site, they head over to your blog where you write about taxes and, guess what, have a free e-Book on how to get your taxes done fast.

They’ve been primed by the guest post to your specific topic/niche, and now your blog caters to that topic.

I guarantee you’ll see more sign-ups to your list, try it out and if it doesn’t work, I encourage you to visit my blog and leave me an angry comment ;).

4.) Stop Wasting Time on Social Media

Okay, before you draw out the fire and pitchforks, hear me out…

As tremendous of a resource as social media can be for creating connections, it pales in comparison when it comes to networking influential people in your niche.

That’s right, email is the greatest “social network” of all.

Staying in touch with people who blog about the same or similar topics as you as the obvious benefit that they will likely support your new posts a projects, sharing them to a whole new audience for you.

Reciprocation generally leads to people willing to help you out back, this is where social media can come in handy (sharing the work of others on Twitter will usually lead to them doing the same).

However, email is where all of the magic happens: guest post submissions, project discussions, debates & private chats, interviews, collaborations, all of the interesting things about your business are going down via email, with social media as the ever present “face” or icebreaker for new contacts & business relationships.

Email is also how you can “chase” traffic rather than sitting around and waiting for it: don’t spam, but for new posts that really push buttons, shoot an email to a few influential people who might be interested in your content, and ask them kindly if they would mind sharing it to their audience (stating plainly that you think their readers would enjoy it).

You’d be surprised at how much a polite email can get done when sent to the right people.

5.) Optimize Your Site Design & Speed

If you recall from this research study on web design, it’s scary how much your site design can effect people’s perception of the quality of your content (and how trustworthy you are)… before they even read any of it!

Did you also know that you only have an average of a few seconds (that’s single digits) to capture someone’s attention before they “bounce” off of your site?

Point is: site design and site speed matter, a lot, and in 2012 it’s time for you to start taking them seriously.

When it comes to site design, you need to think about the end goal of your site: are you trying to get email subscribers? Are you trying to get affiliate sales? Are you hoping people will buy your products?

If you are the typical blog, you are going to want to focus on building your list, and if that’s the case, you need to focus on having a clean, uncluttered site with plenty of reading room and an emphasis on opt-in forms.

Not those annoying opt-in forms that won’t go away when clicked, but natural forms at prime locations, as discussed in section #1.

You are also going to want an easy to navigate site: don’t have a ton of options on your navigation menu, don’t have a search field unless absolutely necessary, and don’t include useless links in your sidebar and other sections of your site (example: get rid of links to categories under your post’s description).

When it comes to speeding up a WordPress blog, there are a few things that will always apply to your site’s speed:

Choose a good host (cheap is fine at first, but good hosting matters if you want to grow)

[Advanced] Replace PHP with static HTML where you are able (check out this great post on how to do just that)

Lastly, if you are running a WordPress site without running a caching plugin, you are doing things wrong, so make sure you have either WP Super Cache or W3 Total Cache installed right this instant! (I like W3 better, and integrated with CloudFlare)

6.) Create Content With Deliberate Practice

In a recent post of mine of the psychology behind a successful blog, I noted a research study that aimed to address why certain violinists went on to become world reknowned musicans, and why others didn’t (even though they were still talented at the violin).

Their findings?

It was due to the amount of deliberate practice that the world class students engaged in, not the amount of practice.

The thing was, the world class students had a tendency to practice in long, deliberate sessions were they worked on addressing their weakpoints and refining their strong points, ie, practice with a purpose.

This is akin to doing drills in athletics, rather than just “shooting the ball around”.

If you hope to create a blog that gets noticed and makes a difference, you need to take on this mindset when you write.

Write for your blog (and for your guest posts) when you really have time to sit and focus, when you have time to concentrate on creating a post that accomplishes what you set out to do from the very beginning, no matter how many edits and rewrites it takes to do it.

A lackluster effort will produce lackluster results, so if you want to become known for having word-class content, practice like a world-class blogger.

Gregory Ciotti writes about WordPress and online marketing at Sparring Mind (make sure to check it out). He also writers a weekly column for Daily Blog Tips.

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Thank for the great targeting tips! Just the motivation I need today. I appreciate the great resource links. Just heard of Scribd from my husband two days ago and now here it is again. Must mean I need to check it out.

Cristion January 30, 2012 1:26 pm

Really good article, especially point 5 – optimizing your website. I am already using W3 Total Cache but haven’t heard until now about the other ones. Will test them.

Thank you for sharing.

Sasha Joneson January 30, 2012 11:53 am

I strongly recommend “Branch Out to New Content Mediums” as a platform for Blog content promotions.

Rajnishon January 29, 2012 12:55 am

Thanks for this great article, I like your 5th point most and those 8 tips to speed up blog are great. I can see difference in load time easily.

Thanks

Christopher Knopickon January 27, 2012 1:44 pm

Hi Gregory,
Nice post, I especially like the emphasis on placement of opt-in boxes which I’ve been thinking a lot about myself and getting into new mediums, like video. I’ve never actually had an email subscriber sign up so my goal is just to attract some. I can write, I just need to make my stuff irresistible, then the next challenge whatever that may be.

Awesome post, I still need to try out guest blogging as I heard a lot about the good returns from it.

I’ll also be trying all the different methods of content posting.

Once again awesome article!

Nickion January 26, 2012 12:01 am

This is my year to branch out into different methods of adding content, other than the usual blog posts and articles. Also like email.

surajon January 25, 2012 11:00 pm

Super like to Social media !..we should leave wasting time on social media like Facebook, twitter. We should focus on improve our website and contents.

Gregory Ciottion January 25, 2012 3:15 pm

Thanks for all of the nice comments folks!

@Eshan – Your site seems to be WAY too wide in my browser, you need to re-size that right column and maybe hardwire your sharing buttons into your theme’s code (are you using a plugin for the social sharing buttons right now?)

Davidon January 25, 2012 2:51 pm

Very good ideas! Email is not something I use much because Twitter and Facebook always seem more important. Maybe I should.

Jamie Northrupon January 25, 2012 1:07 pm

All great points Gregory, email is my best social network, in terms of quantity and enjoyment, I love getting and responding to email, specially with the people in the same niche as my blogs since I picked them all because they were interesting to me.

Tushar@BloggersEthicson January 25, 2012 10:56 am

That is a wonderful post. And I so much agree with making the best of guest posts and the waste of time social media is. This post really has in it to make it to the best posts at DBT

Amrik Virdion January 25, 2012 10:35 am

Wow! Awesome tips! It is really useful to drive more traffic. I use to spend less time on social network to make myself more productive.

Ramandeep Singhon January 25, 2012 9:49 am

i m just amazed that why email list is so important , never gave a thought about this , going to do a good deal of research on it

Leif G.S. Notaeon January 25, 2012 9:27 am

Good suggestions Gregory and a stellar article. I keep trying to think of ways to get people to opt-in, but I am just going to have to bite the bullet and get it done.

Nice tip on Slideshare too, I’ll have to explore that as well. Thanks for sharing with us!

mohanon January 25, 2012 6:38 am

Excellent points really must follow tips thanks.
Gregory, if you are interested check my post about How to Decrease WordPress Blog Loading time.

Joeon January 25, 2012 6:35 am

Hi Gregory, Great post, Email Marketing is such a good idea and definitely can deliver great results, and the guest blogging is another great thing as it can bring surges of great targetted traffic 🙂

Cheers

Ehsanon January 25, 2012 4:23 am

Hi Gregory,
A great post to get success blogging in the year of 2012. My WordPress blog loads very slow and I’ve done everything which was said in the posts of this blog ,but it’s still loading slow.